Enterprises Backpedal on Windows 8

We saw this recent article in CRN about VARs backpedalling on Windows 8. This has to be making some teeth grind at night in reseller land.

Greg Starr, a senior executive at I.T. Works, a Houston-based solution provider, typically spends his day talking business strategy with clients and vendors. But on a recent afternoon, with all his technicians deployed elsewhere, Starr sat at a desk putting Windows 7 –not Windows 8 — on a new PC.

It wasn’t the first time I.T. Works has installed the older version of Windows on a PC and it won’t be the last either, Starr said. Six months after the release of Windows 8, corporate customers just don’t want Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)’s latest operating system, he said.

“I don’t have any clients who say, ‘Give me Windows 8.’ They’re saying just the opposite … the thing came in on Windows 8 and we had to make it [Windows] 7 Pro,” Starr said. “Most machines come with [licenses for] 7 and 8 both, and you choose which one you go with. All our clients are staying with Windows 7 Pro.”

This has to sting up in Redmond. One of the deeper features of Migrate7 is its ability to “go backwards” to earlier versions of Windows. So if you upgraded to Windows8 and now need to go backwards, then the upcoming version (Aug 1) Migrate8 can capture the persona on Windows 8 and move it back to Windows 7.

Speaking personally, I like the idea of Metro and the name. What I had problems with was the feeling that I was being forced to use it. One of the hallmarks of the Old Apple was the feeling that one was being seduced into new features. It’s still true to an extent, but Metro felt like forcing tablet functionality on a non-tablet system.

This has to be one important reason that people are going in (R)reverse on Metro and Windows 8. It’ll be interesting to see what the final 8.1 package looks like as Microsoft moves to finalize it. It makes sense to warn people that Microsoft (like other companies) will sometimes make radical changes in a final version at Gold Master time. So the recently released beta of 8.1 might change a lot before run time.

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